March 22, 2013 AT 7:00 am

TC Maker Raspberrpy Pi 101 Classes #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

We sent the Twin Cities Maker hackerspace a Raspberry Pi care package a couple of months ago, and they have started a number of interesting projects, including an “…automated cat food feeder (the hopper is from the Container Store), stumbling on getting gears printed to actuate the food hopper/dispenser.” TCMaker are also offering excellent RasPi classes at the Hack Factory worth checking out if you are in the area. Here’s their latest listing:

So you want to play with a Raspberry Pi? But maybe you haven’t been able to get one yet. Well you’re in luck! This class includes a Raspberry Pi, Wifi, Power, Cables, LEDs, SD Card! This is everything you need to get the Pi going. Don’t know what a Raspberry Pi is? Check out this article from the NYTimes. The ticket includes $120 worth of hardware for you and the class tutorials.

This will be a two-day class. A laptop computer with at least 4 Gigs of space for the SD card image will be required.

Day 1) Bootstrapping your Raspberry PI (~2 hours)

Install Linux on your SD Card

Start the Pi: Boot and config process

How to run programs on your Pi & basic Linux intro

Day 2) Doing fun things, like Python and GPIO programing (~2 hours)

Setup the WiFi device

Python Basics, and functions.

Blink an LED

Get switch input

Use a photo-resistor to read light levels

Read data from a temperature sensor

Read analog inputs

BYOPIOption

If you have a Raspberry Pi board already, it must be the version that was released December 2012 with 512MB of Memory on board. The older boards have different PIN layouts that are inconsistent with the material that I’m teaching in class, and makes for a bit of a stumbling block when doing lessons. Additionally, all of the kits are pre-buldled with a Raspberry Pi by default, and are pre-ordered well before the class begins so we have enough stock for all students. This means that we may have extra Pis for sale at the start/end of the class.